Andy Roddick was unsurprisingly desperate to offer his thoughts on the Wimbledon final, especially when what he had predicted came to pass so quickly.
He suggested that Novak Djokovic might employ a serve-and-volley game plan, and whilst it was not supremely consistent or effective, it still marked a tactic that could have caused Carlos Alcaraz some problems had things gone his way.
Unfortunately for the legendary veteran, he just came up against the 21-year-old on the wrong day. He was simply too hot to handle.
Andy Roddick sought to emphasise this in his analysis.
Andy Roddick full of praise for Carlos Alcaraz at Wimbledon
Speaking on his Served with Andy Roddick podcast, seeking to provide a speedy review of the day’s Wimbledon action, the former world number one was gushing over Alcaraz.
And who could blame him? The tennis world over was, and rightly so.
The Spaniard was likely the slight favourite going into the clash with Djokovic, a seven-time winner in SW19, but few could have predicted the match would be over so soon.
A straight-sets defeat seemed far too routine for one of, if not the greatest tennis player of all time.
But Roddick tried to explain why Alcaraz was so dominant by outlining one area of his games where he dominated.
He claimed: ‘Alcaraz returned beautifully today. First serve returns were phenomenal. First serve returns were hitting clean winners or getting to a point of control of the rally against Novak is unheard of, it’s just unheard of. But he has the ability to take the racket out of your hands.’
Carlos Alcaraz was phenomenal against Novak Djokovic
For all the claims suggesting that Djokovic was poor, as he raced forward point after point only to feather plenty of his shots into the net, he was forced into such awkward situations by Alcaraz.
After all, he will have gone into the match knowing that he could not outlast him physically.
The Serbian had to do something different to try and disrupt his opponent, ending points early and conserving as much energy as possible.
As we saw, it really did not work, but had he just exchanged baseline rally after baseline rally, eventually the stress on his knee would have been too much.
Comparing their respective performances, Alcaraz struck 31 winners to just nine of Djokovic’s, and whilst errors flowed freely from the Alcaraz racket, so too did they from his opponent’s.
Perhaps more tellingly though, was that from the 53 points at the net, the 37-year-old won just 51%.
Carlos Alcaraz also admitted that he had been working on one specific area of his game ahead of the final, and that certainly paid off too.
This will not be the end for the 24-time Grand Slam champion, but it certainly marked a dent in his ambitions to move ahead of the chasing pack as the true greatest of all time.
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